


Life, Death, and Breakfast

by LovelyPoet



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Developing Friendships, Gen, Humor, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Lighthearted conversations about death, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-21 20:38:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17050178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LovelyPoet/pseuds/LovelyPoet
Summary: The first Wednesday that Jason showed up (It was a sheer coincidence, Chidi thinks.) Chidi was so absorbed in his reading that he didn't even notice it happening until Jason was sitting across the table from him, chewing with his mouth open and already deep into the kind of story that Eleanor callsFlorida Man: The Greatest Hits Collection.OrOn Wednesdays wewear pinkhang with our boy.OrDuring the year in Australia Chidi and Jason fall into a routine and a friendship.





	Life, Death, and Breakfast

**Author's Note:**

  * For [telm_393](https://archiveofourown.org/users/telm_393/gifts).



On Wednesday mornings, Chidi always gets breakfast at the same cafe. It's three blocks out of the way on his walk from home to campus, but their usual breakfast cook takes Wednesdays off, and the waitress who subs for him only makes wheat toast, extra crispy bacon, and scrambled eggs, which means Chidi gets one glorious almost decision-free morning until he gets to campus. Unless you count having made the definitely questionable decision to habitually walk three blocks out of his way for runny, under-seasoned eggs and bacon cooked far past where he enjoys it. 

The first Wednesday that Jason showed up (It was a sheer coincidence, Chidi thinks.) Chidi was so absorbed in his reading that he didn't even notice it happening until Jason was sitting across the table from him, chewing with his mouth open and already deep into the kind of story that Eleanor calls _Florida Man: The Greatest Hits Collection_. 

Three weeks later, though, Chidi has accepted that it's become a thing. A mid-week (he will not say 'hump day' no matter how many times Jason begs him to) morning tradition of trying and failing to wrap his mind around literally anything that Jason shares about his life. Like now, for instance, a lull in the conversation that demands to be filled is just hanging over the table about to crush him under its awkward weight, but what is Chidi supposed to say to a story about trying to use six fire extinguishers as a jetpack to fly onto the fifty yard line at Super Bowl XXXIX? 

He's pretty sure he used up his weekly allotment of "wows" five minutes ago and that an explainer on Roman numerals isn't going to be a good use of anyone's time. So he ignores the the churning knot in his gut telling him to say something situationally appropriate and let's the lull stretch out as they both crunch away on bacon that's more carbon car than anything else. He takes a long swallow from his coffee. It’s bitter black and has gone cold from his paralyzing internal debate over the ecological, nutritional, and ethical implications of the variety of available milks and sweeteners.

"Yo, Chidi," Jason says, finally breaking the silence as he pokes his knife into the open jar of Vegemite on the cafe table. "I got a question."

"It's an extract of brewer's yeast." Chidi sighs, but it's less exasperation at Jason's fixation of Australian condiments and more a strange kind of relief of realizing Jason wasn't waiting or expecting for him to say anything, much less the right thing. "And yes, it's supposed to taste like that. And no, I don't know why."

"No, I got the vegemite thing." Jason says. He pauses, mouth pursed and eyebrows drawing down, the knife making tap-tap noises against the edge of the jar as he fidgets. Then he says, "I mean, I don't like get it got it because it tastes kinda of like somebody put soy sauce on a shoe, and not even a cool shoe--"

"Oh boy," Chidi says under his breath, recognizing the wind-up into another story. 

"--like the weird dumb shoes the rich guys wears out on their their boats--"

"What was your question, Jason?" Chidi interrupts. 

"Oh, right" Jason says, pausing and tipping his to the side in a way that reminds Chidi of his childhood dog. "Um, I forgot."

Their waitress drops their check on the table as she passes, and Chidi pulls out his wallet sets a few bills on the table even as Jason glances furtively at the exit and shifts in his chair. 

"Now, go now!" Jason says in what Chidi guesses he thinks is a whisper, and darts out through the door nearly steamrolling a dark-haired woman struggling to hold it open while she maneuvers a double stroller. Chidi pushes back from the table, smiles and waves to the waitress who doesn't acknowledge him, and takes hold of the door with an apologetic smile to the woman, who yanks the stroller around with a huff. 

When Chidi gets outside, Jason is about fifty meters down the walk, bent over panting with his hands braced on his knees. 

"Chidi!" Jason says breathlessly, grabbing him and dragging him through a complex series of hugs and hand clasps that Chidi utterly fails to follow. "Oh man, homie, you were so far behind me I thought you got caught and I was gonna have to bust you out of Australia jail!"

"No, I didn't get caught," Chidi says.

"I'd do it" Jason says, wide-eyed and earnest as Chidi has ever seen anyone. "I wouldn't let you go down like that. Cuz you're my boy now and you always gotta look out for your crew. So I'd do what it takes, man. Even if i had to like fight that buff kangaroo on the internet."

"That's not. I mean. Thank you?" Chidi says, feeling oddly touched and also slightly concerned that he knows which kangaroo Jason is talking about, and he makes a mental note about adjusting the next round of study questions to dig deeper into Jason's conceptions of ethical obligation within and across affinity groups and how they've evolved over time.

* * *

"I remember what I was gonna ask," Jason says as he sits down across from Chidi and waves to the waitress. She smiles at him and scurries over over to take his order, giggling when he requests "the usual." It's Wednesday again. Everyone is eating the usual. And as far as Chidi can tell none of them are enjoying it. The bacon is more burned than usual, and so is the toast, and Chidi is really starting to question his life choices. Or non-choices. Or his life. 

"What you were going to ask when?" Chidi asks, half distracted by scraping his fork over the blackened surface of the bread, hoping against hope for something edible underneath. His hopes are in vain.

"Last week, duh," Jason says. "After I told you about me and Pillboi and Super Bowl Ex Ex Ex Eye Ex, and before I thought I was gonna have to wrestle a kangaroo to get you out of jail." 

"And you just now remembered?" Chidi asks.

"Naw, I remembered when Tahani was talking about her good friend, um, the one who knows Batman and likes dogs."

"Batman isn't r--" Chidi cuts himself off before a repeat of the professional wrestling disillusionment debacle can happen. "You mean Tom Hardy?"

"Yeah!" Jason says with a grin. "Do you think Tahani knows Batman too? Ooh! Do you think she knows Alfred? Alfred is like the coolest."

"Tahani doesn't know Batman. Also she told us about that on Friday," Chidi says. "If you remembered then, why didn't you ask me then, or on any day since then? I've seen you every day."

"Because it wasn't Wednesday" Jason says with an easy shrug and picks up the almond milk on the table, holding it out to Chidi. "You're coffee's getting cold." 

Chidi is so caught up in trying to figure out why Wednesday matters, that he reaches out and takes the almond milk, pours it into his cup, and follows it with two spoons of sugar without second guessing it. 

"Ok," he says after taking a sip of still hot and perfectly mellowed coffee, "well it's Wednesday now."

"Yeah," Jason says. He pauses and picks up his own piece of burnt toast, turns every which way in his hand before putting it back down. "You know the food isn't very good here, right?"

"That's your question?"

"Naw, that was just a thought cuz the bacon always tastes like the bottom of a barbecue pit and they don't even have Lucky Charms" Jason says, and Chidi has to admit that at least half of that was valid reasoning. "My question is what do you think being dead is like?"

"Um. Death. Well, Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zhou said in the ninth century BCE that birth and death aren't a beginning and an end but rather---" Chidi cuts himself when he realizes that Jason is making a terrible sound like feedback and grinding gears and people are starting to stare. "What? What?!"

"If I wanted to talk to smart teacher-guy Chidi about this, I would have asked at school," Jason whines. "And I don't wanna know what some dead Chinese guy thought being dead was gonna be like. I wanna know what my boy Chidi thinks it's gonna be like."

Chidi isn't sure he understands.

"I'm not sure I understand," he says. "I was telling you what I think."

"No, you weren't" Jason says, pointing an accusatory fork full of runny eggs at him. "You only ever talk about what other people think. It's all ‘kicker guards say this' and ‘Hobbes says that' and I read all those comics and Hobbes never said any of that shit. And there are no kicker guards. There's offensive and defensive guards, but kickers are special teams!" 

"Kirkegaard," Chidi says, gesturing wildly, coffee sloshing over the rim of the mug he's still holding. "Søren Kirkegaard, the Danish philosopher widely considered the father of existentialism. What even is-- oh my god. Did you think I've been talking about American football players this whole time? Why would I do that?"

"I don't know!" Jason says, voice rising now and if Chidi were paying attention to anything but the rising tide of frustration, he'd probably notice the full, stunned attention of the cafe turned on them. "I don't know why you would keep telling us about a guy who can't believe the stuff you're talking about either, but you do that too!"

"Kant!" Chidi shouts, slamming his mug down and rising up out of his seat, leaning forward across the table. "His name is Immanuel Kant and he believed that time and space are real but only provable so far as we perceive them!"

"I don't care," Jason yells back, "I just want to know what you think it's like to be dead!!"

"I think" Chidi screams, "that death is a blessed cessation of all being and feeling and I will welcome its cold grasp when it comes for me if it just means I can stop worrying because I am TIRED OF ALWAYS FEELING LIKE THIS!"

His chest is heaving, fists clenched and knuckles pressing hard against the wood of the tabletop, and somewhere in the background someone coughs.

"Cool," Jason says placidly as he leans back in his seat. "I think there's a heaven, but not like boring clouds and naked babies with harps and shit. I kinda hope it's gonna be like walking into a good party right when the drop hits… and no matter how long it goes nobody ever pukes or OD's or starts a fight or calls the cops."

"What?" Chidi blinks.

"I mean, your whole not worrying thing is cool too." Jason shrugs. "No judgment, homie."

"I really don't understand what just happened," Chidi says.

"Well, for one thing, " a stern voice says from behind Chidi, "You just got banned from ever eating here again."

"Aw man," says Jason after their pictures have been taken and they've been firmly escorted off the premises. "I told you you were too slow last week."

* * *

Chidi's not sure what he expects after that, but it's not to come out of his apartment the next Wednesday and find Jason waiting for him on the sidewalk. Not least of which because he's quite certain he never told Jason where he lived. 

"What are you doing here?" Chidi asks, hiking his bag up higher on his shoulder. He's running late because he spent 20 minutes trying to figure out where he could go for breakfast and he really just wants something to be simple. "How do you even know my address?"

"I asked Simone, " Jason says. "And when she wouldn't tell me, I asked Eleanor." 

"How does Eleanor know my address?" Chidi asks.

"She's Eleanor," Jason says as if that's an answer to the question, and Chidi supposes that maybe it is. "Come on. I know a way better place we can eat."

Chidi wants to say no. But he also wants breakfast, and for some strange reason, he almost trusts Jason in this moment not to lead him astray. They walk directly toward campus in companionable silence, or at least something like what Chidi's always thought companionable silence is supposed to feel like.

They've only gone a few blocks when Jason points Chidi toward an entryway that Chidi's never paid attention to before. There's a metal sign hanging beside the door announcing Brekky, Lunch, Filipino in laser cut block lettering and an A-frame chalkboard on the sidewalk advertising specials that Chidi's never heard of.

Inside, a middle-aged asian man is standing behind a shining lunch counter that runs nearly the full length of the restaurant. As soon as they get through the doors, he looks up with a grin and says, "G'day, Jason!"

"‘Ay, Benjie!" Jason says his face breaking into a wide smile. He settles at one of the stools of the lunch counter, reaches across to engage Benjie in a quick sequence of fistbump-handshake-highfive, and follows it with a flurry of words that Chidi doesn't understand but that leave Benjie grinning. 

"You got it, mate!" He says and disappears into the kitchen.

"What just happened?" Chidi asks the air around him as Jason emphatically gestures for him to take the stool next to him at the counter. He sits picks up a laminated menu from the counter, skimming the front quickly before flipping it over to the back. Then back to the front. Then back to the back. His stomach starts to tighten. "Oh no."

"Homie, chill. I got you." Jason says, taking the menu from his hands and setting it out of Chidi's reach. With his hands braced on the counter, he starts swiveling slightly on his stool. "Benjie's tapsilog is like the best. It's almost as good as Pillboi's lola used to make back in Jacksonville, and Pillboi's lola was so dope. She always told the cops we'd been with her, and she let me come over whenever I wanted. Once, she even let me stay for like a whole month, and she cooked so much. She made tapsilog and adobo and lumpia…"

Jason is a few minutes deep into a story involving a trip to an alligator farm and an a "trunkful" of M-80 firecrackers when Benjie emerges from the kitchen with two steaming plates piled high. Chidi feels his mouth start to water at the aroma garlic. 

"Eat up," Benjie says, setting the plates down in front of them with a flourish, and Jason digs in instantly, shoveling bite after bite of egg and rice and beef into his mouth. 

Chidi approaches this like he does everything else — cautious beyond reason — but at the first taste of savory-sweet meat he almost moans in satisfaction. 

"See," Jason says around a mouthful of food. "Good, huh?"

"Yeah." Chidi cuts into the egg with the side of his fork, letting the yolk run and mix with the pile of rice.

"So Pillboi's, uh, lola?" Chidi says hoping Jason won't notice the diversion away from wildlife and explosive devices. "What's she up to now?"

"Her and Pillboi's lolo went on a snake hunt in the Everglades for their anniversary last year and phwoosh," Jason says with an odd kind of awe in his voice, miming an explosion with his hands. "Their fan boat blew up." 

"Oh," Chidi says. "That's terrible."

"No way! Partying in the glades is how she would have wanted to go." He balls up the straw wrapper. Taking careful aim with one eye closed, he flicks it across the counter and Chidi watches as it bounces off a napkin dispenser and into a garbage can on the other side of the lunch counter. "Woo! Fifty points!"

Benjie approaches with the check when they're both down to scraping their forks against bare plates in search of one last taste, and Jason makes a show of patting down the non-existent pockets in his basketball shorts before shrugging and saying "Oh dip, bro, I musta left my wallet at home."

"Ah, no worries, Jason. Next time, eh?" Benjie says with an indulgent smile, clearing their plates away.

"You know he's never going to pay," Chidi says with sigh, pulling his own wallet out once Jason has wandered back outside.

"I'm not that gullible. Also, he's possibly the worst liar I've ever met other than my niece, and she just turned three," Benjie says.

* * *

"Jason, don't take this the wrong way," Chidi says on the post-breakfast walk to campus. "But exactly how are you still alive?"

"I told you," Jason says with a shrug, squinting into the bright November sun, "the safe must've been defective, cuz the door just fell open." 

"No, I don't mean…" Chidi starts, pausing briefly to collect his thoughts and then begins ticking off what he knows about Jason's life. "You've nearly been eaten by alligators, blown up by explosives, and drowned in Jello and pudding on two completely different occasions. You just finished telling me that you once drank an entire bottle of tequila, followed by a bottle of codeine cough syrup, and tried to parasail with a bedsheet, and yesterday you were bitten by one of the most dangerous spiders in Australia. Again." 

"Yeah, but this time the spider snuck up on me!" Jason says, stopping to watch a pair of seagulls fight over an apple core on the sidewalk.

"That's what you're going to focus on?" Chidi says. "And I don't really think that reaching your hand into a hole in the ground when three different people have said ‘Jason, there's probably a spider in there' counts as being snuck up on." 

"There could have been buried treasure—"

"Unlikely to an almost statistically impossible degree"

"Or one of those bilby things Simone was telling us about!" Jason says. "Those things are dope little dudes!"

"Be that as it may, that was also distinctly less likely than there being spiders," Chidi says. 

They're halfway through Victoria Park when Jason gets distracted by a woman selling balloons and pinwheels. When they finally walk away Chidi has inexplicably acquired a glittery silver pinwheel, which he clenches tightly in his left hand, and Jason is busy sucking the helium from a mylar Betty Boop. 

"Stop that," Chidi says. "It looks obscene."

"You worry about things too much," Jason says in a high pitched squeak, and he goes back for another lungful of helium. "Has anyone ever told you that?"

"Literally everyone in my life since I learned to talk" Chidi sighs, just barely resisting the urge to look around and make sure no one he knows is in range to see them.

"You gotta loosen up, homie!" Jason says, his voice gradually dropping back to normal pitch. "Stop freaking out over everything and have some fun. Be more like me! What's the worst that can happen?"

"Oh. No," Chidi says, "No, no. I don't— No. Nope. As we've already established, the worst that could happen is I could die, or cause someone else's death. Or humiliate myself or someone else. Or cause the downfall of the entirety of civilization." 

"Dude, things either happen or they don't, if they don't happen why worry about them?" Jason says, then notices that Betty has gone flat. "Aw man. Betty."

"Here," Chidi says, handing over his pinwheel and watching as Jason's eyes light up.

* * *

It's Wednesday again, but they aren't eating, and only partly because Chidi is still recovering from his nihilist bad-idea chili. The Sydney airport is bustling, full of people who don't know that they're living in a reality that shouldn't even exist. 

"We died." Jason says. "And went to hell, and Michael tortured us for 300 years, but it's still this year and now we're gonna wind up in hell again?"

"Yup," Chidi says. 

"This year has been really weird," Jason says. "Like, top five weirdest for sure."

"Top five?" Chidi says.

"Well, yeah." Jason says, "When Pillboi and I were fifteen…"

And Chidi leans back in his seat and listens.

Because it's Wednesday.


End file.
